


Borderlands Postal Service

by Querulousgawks



Category: In Other Lands | The Turn of the Story - Sarah Rees Brennan
Genre: Enemies to Friends, Epistolary, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-20 23:46:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14272185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Querulousgawks/pseuds/Querulousgawks
Summary: Letters to and from the Border Camp, across the events of their four years in training. Will follow canon pretty closely, with a few headcanons thrown in.





	1. Registration Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke writes to his mother after Registration Day - all the important stuff, and then a couple of things that don't matter at all, just to fill out the page.

Dear Mum,

Registration Day went well. A few recruits from our side seem awfully green for settler families - I didn’t realize it had been so long since the Lowlanders had seen real action, but there were boys as old as me who can’t really spar yet. I tried to help out, and I think I did okay. At least, most of them seemed like they appreciated it.

~~Do you think we’re condescending? Sunborns, I mean.~~

There’s a couple of Wavechasers with good aim, though, and a Pathwind who’s almost as fast as Louise. (Please don’t read that bit out! I _don’t_ want her coming on Family Day looking to best a kid. She doesn’t need to come at all, really, I think they’ve scheduled it for Autumn even though everyone knows that’s bandit season in the woods. They’re not very practical about some things, at school.) Between the four of us, I think there’s a chance the Trigon season will be good. I mean, I know we won’t be anything like the national team, but you can tell Dad and the cousins I won’t get rusty.

Are you getting mail to the fort this season? Adam reported trolls were hassling couriers on the east line and they might see a skirmish right after I left - but I think he might have just been trying to make school sound boring.

It worked, a little bit. I know you think this is important, but there’s so much talking, even for the real course of study. I don’t know how the council students stand it, in class all day. I guess they’re just that type.

I am learning a lot from Serene-Heart-In-the-Chaos-of-Battle, the elf that joined. Her bow work _is_ better than Louise’s, as good as Aunt Eleanor, even! She’s met trolls in battle, too. She was with her mother’s patrol, like me and Dad, before they tried that new treaty with the dwarves and the woods settled down enough that she could come to the school. The elves have a whole different footwork pattern for close combat in the understory, and her crossbow is nothing like the ones at Armory Supply. I’m glad the school has opened up across species, now.

If _she_ joined the Trigon team we might actually give National a run for their money, but she said some ~~weird~~ ~~embarrassing~~ cultural stuff on Registration Day, and some of the guys are still mad about it. Dad would never let that get in the way of a stronger team, but I guess some of the newer families don’t get out as much as Sunborns.

Well, that was Registration Day. I don’t know how much time I’ll have to write, after this. Send my love to everybody.

Oh, I almost forgot: some kid from across the Wall brought explosive contraband with him, and scared a lot of the other recruits into going back instead of signing up. It’s probably no big deal, but have you ever heard of the Schafer family? Or, well, anything about people across the Wall trying to sabotage the border camp? 

He’d be really bad at it, probably - he’s just a little kid, and he’s definitely not warrior course material. I don’t even know why he stayed.

It’s just that the Border Guard is so important, and it seems like there could be real trouble if we keep getting Otherlanders who don’t understand that. Could you ask Dad if they're all like this? He’s supposed to get a lot of new recruits at the fort this year.

I’ll keep an eye on this one, just in case.

Love,

Luke

PS If the mail lines stay open, could you send a dictionary from the library? Just a regular human kind. I want to set a good example for the warrior course guys, and they’re really blowing off our council classes.


	2. Serene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Serene-Heart writes to her cousin, Swift-Arrows, from the scandalous Border Guard training camp:
> 
> "I’d be branded a rogue in sewing circles far less selective than that lecturing prat Golden’s. Not that he even takes an interest in the stories of rogues, as he reminds me every time I’m in shouting distance. "

Dearest Swift,

What news of the eastern patrols? I have enclosed a better map, as you requested, of the troll hills that lay along our border; there are some fine details in the mapmaking here. I have also stolen a moment of peace from these chattering boys to send you an update on the training camp. Is it worth the loss to our ranger groups to send more women here before they are assigned a route of their own? I must admit, I cannot yet say for sure. 

It is certainly true that I am learning a great deal. I hate to indulge your wild theories about human behavior; but yes, in this _one instance,_ you were right. Human women really do permit their men to train with the Border Guard; to advance in the ranks, even, when they merit it; and perhaps even when they do not. There is a commander here who would be tied to a willow and left for the wargs if he ever tried his tricks on real soldiers, and yet a most capable woman, Captain Woodsinger, indulges his pretenses of authority and must defend every terrible, wavering choice. 

I am ashamed to admit it - you _know_ how I think the Chaos-of-Battle boys could do anything they set their mind to, and you and I have talked often about how absurd it is that Mother’s generation still cloisters them so - but I can’t help but think human women are taking equality a little too far. 

Even in this veritable harem, though, I have found something approaching the true companionship of our time in training together, and I don’t mean that at all to diminish our bond, dearest cousin. There is a Sunborn here, Luke, who is nothing like his dallying uncle and not at all like other boys - one of the only ones here who takes these arts as seriously as we do. I think Mother would like him, if she could get past her root-bound prejudices. I think - I think he may be my sword-sister.

Are you laughing? I would understand, if you are. It sounds absurd to me, too, yet I see glimpses of it everywhere: in the twin glints of our swords as we raise them in perfect time, in the single arrowsong as we hit two different marks. Mother would think it far worse than laughable, I’m sure. A daughter of Chaos never quails, but when I think of telling her that I am trusting my back and my blade to a man! How she would disdain me, and pity Luke, for being asked to bear a burden for which women are so well equipped. 

And to ask it of a Sunborn, after Gregory Sunborn showed her whole generation what _men_ are best equipped for! I’d be branded a rogue in sewing circles far less selective than that lecturing prat Golden’s. Not that he even takes an interest in the stories of rogues, as he reminds me every time I’m in shouting distance. I shouldn’t even bother to track him down over our furlough, except that I did happen to make acquaintance with a dwarf student here, and her family turns out to have a source for that gold-leaf embroidery cord that matches his family’s crest so well. 

I know Mother wants to stay connected to our civilians, since we may need to ask so much of them should real war come upon us. Perhaps I will send the cord on ahead of me, while I’m out of range for one of his scolds.

Anyway. I can’t imagine trying to tell _that_ crowd that Luke is so different from his wild relations. He shows no desire for me, and thank goodness, as I feel none for him. Though I know men can hide these things in their elaborate games, he is not skillful at pretence. And we are often thrown together to protect one of the weakest and yet most endearing humans in camp, a spitfire from across the Wall who teases Luke terribly, but has stood by us both in his own brash and headstrong way. 

You would like Elliot, Swift. _His_ elaborate games would give the gossipers at home a climb for their coins, but he is honest, too, even when lies would probably serve him better. It’s refreshing. I hope Elliot and Luke can turn their quarrelling into closeness, in that baffling way that men sometimes do. I would like to keep them both in my company - and not like you are thinking, cousin. In fact, they are essentially acting as chaperones for each other, and isn’t that more proper than being alone with either? (This is the kind of slippery logic that makes Elliot so charming.) 

But really - it is an unexpected gift, after seeing so much ugly foolishness in the humans’ backward ways, to find two whose foolishness gives me such joy. 

I hope you can meet them someday, Swift, and that we meet again soon. Until then, I remain,

your heart-sister,

Serene-Heart-In-The-Chaos-of-Battle 


	3. Linda Martin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It had only been two weeks since she had driven here with almost one-quarter of the Year 9 class. (All the students that had seemed like they might be receptive to the idea of a magical land, and also Elliot Schafer, because it was worth a shot.)

Linda Martin parked the school van at the base of the wall and looked grimly at the stairs. It had only been two weeks since she had driven here with almost one-quarter of the Year 9 class. (All the students that had seemed like they might be receptive to the idea of a magical land, and also Elliot Schafer, because it was worth a shot.) She didn’t usually look for a letter until the next time came to round up potential recruits. Neither she nor Cadet Cooper - Captain Woodsinger, now - were exactly devoted correspondents, and it was a long drive for a teacher who didn’t get comp time for the actual testing day. There might not even be a letter waiting, this soon after.

(Two weeks ago she had dropped Elliot Schafer like a wordy mine into Abby Cooper’s bloody clockwork Narnia. There would be a letter.) 

The thought kept Linda smiling even as her pace slowed and her knees started to click. These damn uneven, showy, ominous, ludicrous stairs. Ten years after she’d made her choice, and still she dreamed of this climb more than she did trolls or towers, more than the bite of tanning their own leathers or the pleasant fizz of Abby buckling her into a swordbelt. Of course, she’d seen more of these stairs in her waking world, by now, than she ever had of the world beyond it. 

Linda reached the top landing and stood for a moment as she always did, looking out along the shabby winding wall and searching herself for any thread of longing to cross it. Then she breathed out, sat down on the top step, and used her nail file to jimmy out a stone that was just a little smoother than the rest. 

She knew there would be one letter. She probably should’ve guessed, after half a year of teaching French to Elliot Schafer, that there would be two.

_On parchment, in Elvish:_

Linda,

A pacifist? Really? I don’t know whether I should be accusing you of deliberate sabotage or just asking you for a refund. He convinced nearly all of the rest of that batch to turn back, you know. Kids he’d never even met before. _And_ I suspect he’ll follow me to find this dropoff - he’s been pestering last years’ recruits about communication routes whenever he takes a break from disrupting class. 

Hence the Elvish, though God knows how much you remember, and how long it will be until he’s learned that, too.

We are talking about this in May.

Love, anyway,

Abby

P.S. I can’t say he’s all nonsense, I suppose. You know I always thought your objections were alarmist, but lately - well. The Generals are itching for war. As often as we mobilize the Border Guard for conflicts that haven’t even started, sometimes I think I may as well have moved to America.

_On the back of a wrinkled paper bag, in pencil:_

Dear Mlle. Martin,

All right, I’m staying, so I suppose I can’t threaten to turn you in for child trafficking - the way you should have, the first time someone offered you money to drive a bunch of helpless teenagers into a field in Devon. In a _van,_ that honestly doesn’t strike you as creepy? Are you repeating the cycle of your own trauma on us? 

Anyway, I’m writing to ask you for a favor.

Okay, maybe I should have started on with more grovelling, but the fact is, I tipped you off about those kids who were distributing the pornography in second period French, and don’t you owe me one for that? And it’s not like it's a time investment, or anything. I just need you to drive by 36 Crimendon once in a while, and tell Captain Woodsinger, who by the way can’t throw off a tail _at all,_ if anything happens to the man there. 

You probably know it’s my dad; you must be the one who tells the parents about military school. I’m not worried, but since you’ve apparently robbed me of all communications technology as well as normal clothing, I can’t exactly check on him myself, can I? Just see if anything changes. Like if the house gets boarded up, ~~or if anybody comes back~~ , or anything. Since I’m apparently the only one who thinks about consequences around here. I’ll check once a week. 

Good luck with your conscience or whatever,

Elliot

P.S. How long did you stay here? It must have been a while, if you learned written Elvish. I’ve been here two weeks and I can barely get a handle on the alphabet. It’s probably all the forced calisthenics slowing me down.


End file.
